To the Right honourable, the high Court of Parliament;  
The Humble Petition of many hundreds of distressed Women, tradesmen's Wives, and widows.  
THAT your poor Petitioners being fallen into great want and necessity through the great decay of Trading, as it is generally conceived, occasioned for want of due execution of justice upon incendiaries and delinquents upon this State, producing the manifold distractions and distempers that are now therein; and having divers times petitioned for redress thereof, and composing the differences in the same, the relief and remedying the excessive grievances not only by the Citizens of London, and Tradesmen in and about the Suburbs thereof, which have not yet been answered, not as we conceive through the neglect or rejection of the Honourable House of Commous, but by the mere opposition of some Bishops and Lords sitting in the House of peers: And there having also been several Petitions by your Petitioners delivered formerly into the Lord's House, which they having received no satisfactory answer of as yet, info●ceth us once again to Petition this Honourable House for answer to the same, in granting your Petitioners their just desires and requests, which are:  
First, that Bishops, with their whole usurped government, both spiritual and temporal, and all Offices appertaining to the same government, wherein they have exercised and executed injustice and oppression over the Children and Saints of God, the King's faithful and loyal subjects; may be extinguished and abolished, all superfluous and superstitious Ceremonies now joined to the service of Almighty God, and introduced into the exercise of true Religion, and war●anted by the same, but repugnant to the purity and sincerity thereof, whose beginning is from Satan and that son of Perdition, who is the child of that bottomless pit, Antichrist and his followers and Disciples, children of disobedience to God and their lawful Princes, the principal steps leading to idolatry; and finally to apostasy from God and his true Religion, the only means and instrument to nourish vice and impurity in the clergy and ministry in their lives and conversations; the mixing with the true Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles, the Traditions and Inventions of man, thereby corrupting the pure and sincere teaching of the Word of God, seducing and blinding the people and Disciples of Christ in their Religion; may be annihilated and utterly abolished in the Church of England, and other his majesty's Dominions under his royal subjection.  
Secondly, that faithful, laborious and learned Teachers may be placed in the ministry, whereby the people of God may rightly be taught and instructed in the ways of godliness and holiness, and such as are scandalous and vicious in their lives and conversations, whose examples doth more increase the kingdom of darkness, whose original is the devil, by teaching men to live in uncleanness and unholiness, than their Doctrines win souls to God, or such as are unsound and corrupt in their doctrines, may be removed from the place of the ministry.  
Thirdly, that Popish Lords, and all such in the House of Peers may be sequestered the House, that are any ways dissaffected to the Protestant Religion, who are generally conceived to be the hinderers and opposers of composing the differences in the State, of bringing evil doers to trial, and deserved punishment, and of settling true Religion in this kingdom.  
Fourthly, that the distressed estate in Ireland may be in time remembered before it be too late, and that speedy aid and assistance of men money and ammunition may be thither transported for their relief.  
Fiftly, that this kingdom may be put into a present posture of war, for the safety and defence thereof.  
Sixtly, that all incendiaries and delinquents, may without any further delay, be brought to trial, and punishment, as they shall be found to deserve the protraction of time therein, hath been the only cause of the decay of trading, as it is conceived, and of all the miseries and troubles this kingdom now groans under.  
And your humble and distressed Petitioners, with bended knees, and upright hearts, shall daily pray for the continuance and prosperous success of this High and Honourable Court of Parliament, to settle and reform all things that are amiss in this commonwealth, both in Church and State, and all other his majesty's kingdoms, to which they shall ever say, Amen.  
Averred by R. P. Clerke.   

London, printed for John Hammond. 1642.